Earlier this year, we learned that Godsmack intended to make their latest record, Lighting Up the Sky, their last. The band didn't have any intention of breaking up—they're touring with Staind this summer—but singer Sully Erna explained that he and his bandmates felt their story was complete. Thus, they'd prefer to stay on the road and enjoy traveling while playing live.
Godsmack performed at Kattfest in Oklahoma City, OK, where they were interviewed by local radio station Rock 100.5. In the interview, Erna elaborated on why Godsmack are done with studio output.
"It's just time," he said. "We've been running for a while. And I think we all had a good talk while we were making this record and we realized where we're at in our career. We've accomplished a lot of things — far beyond what we thought we would when we started the band. And I've just learned that there's other things in life that I'd like to do with my life besides just always tour. But it's not like we're announcing a break-up or anything; we're just basically relieving ourselves from doing any more new music because we have a strong catalog and we're proud of it and we have a lot of Top 10s. And honestly, we can't even play 'em all in one show, so at what point do you say you've arrived and start enjoying it instead of just continuing the grind and work yourself down to the bone and burn yourself out. So we're just trying to set up the sunset years now and enjoy the rest of our career traveling and playing shows instead of always having to be in the studio."
Erna clarified that he still enjoys making new music, playing live is just what Godsmack are more into.
"It's just that what we do we do and there's a certain enjoyment that we have from writing and recording songs, but, really, the big reward is to come out and play the stuff live and work with the fans and have a big fun party. That's what we enjoy the most. So we wanna just kind of create the greatest-hits show now and just be able to have that live on."
